Search results matching tag 'Best Practices'http://sqlblog.com/search/SearchResults.aspx?o=DateDescending&tag=Best+Practices&orTags=0Search results matching tag 'Best Practices'en-USCommunityServer 2.1 SP2 (Build: 61129.1)Two Presentations This Weekend at #SQLSaturday349 in Salt Lake Cityhttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/jimmy_may/archive/2014/10/24/two-presentations-this-weekend-at-sqlsaturday349-in-salt-lake-city.aspxSat, 25 Oct 2014 00:09:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:56002aspiringgeek<p>I have the privilege of being selected to fill two slots this weekend at <a href="https://www.sqlsaturday.com/349/eventhome.aspx">#SQLSaturday349</a> in Salt Lake City.&nbsp; The venue is simultaneously hosting the <a href="http://www.utahgeekevents.com">Big Mountain Data</a> event.</p>
<p>My talks are:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>To the Cloud, Infinity, &amp; Beyond: Top 10 Lessons Learned at MSIT</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>&amp;</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="http://sqlblog.com/b/jimmymay/archive/2014/03/24/sql-server-2014-columnstore-indexes-the-big-deck.aspx">Columnstore Indexes in SQL Server 2014: Flipping the DW /faster Bit</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The latter is one of my staples.&nbsp; The former is a new presentation, a preview of my forthcoming delivery for <a href="https://www.sqlpass.org">PASS Summit14</a><strong></strong>.</p>
<p><a href="http://utahgeekevents.us8.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=6c4beffc6fb27ae36a28122aa&amp;id=50f1128651&amp;e=008e12c530">Register</a>, see the <a href="http://utahgeekevents.us8.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=6c4beffc6fb27ae36a28122aa&amp;id=3fb181c3aa&amp;e=008e12c530">schedule</a>, or see the <a href="https://www.sqlsaturday.com/349/eventhome.aspx">event home page</a> on the SQL Saturday site.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll look forward to seeing you <a href="http://utahgeekevents.us8.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=6c4beffc6fb27ae36a28122aa&amp;id=a46b75b367&amp;e=008e12c530">here</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Spencer Fox Eccles Business Building <br />1768 Campus Center Drive <br />Salt Lake City, UT 84112</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Kudos to Pat Wright (<a href="http://sqlasylum.wordpress.com">blog</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/sqlasylum">@sqlasylum</a>) &amp; crew for their crazy efforts (pardon the pun) in coordinating the event.</p>
<p>TJay Belt (<a href="https://twitter.com/tjaybelt">@tjaybelt</a>), Andrea Alred (<a href="https://twitter.com/royalsql">@RoyalSQL</a>), &amp; Ben Miller (<a href="https://twitter.com/dbaduck">@DBADuck</a>), keep your peepers peeled&mdash;I&rsquo;m on the way!</p>Four New Slide Decks for SQL Server and IT Pros from the DevLink 2014 Conferencehttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/kevin_kline/archive/2014/08/29/four-new-slide-decks-for-sql-server-and-it-pros-from-the-devlink-2014-conference.aspxFri, 29 Aug 2014 11:37:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:55015KKline<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.3333339691162px;line-height:19px;">I always enjoy presenting at the&nbsp;<a href="http://devlink.net/">DevLink</a>&nbsp;conference, presented each summer in middle Tennessee. &nbsp;This year, I'm trying to be a better social media person and actually post my slides (in their most recent forms) on my SlideShare account for everyone to see and share. If you attended my session(s) and enjoyed them, feel free to download the content here. But it'd be even better if you&nbsp;<em>also&nbsp;</em>left a few words in the Comment section. Skip below to grab the slide decks.</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.3333339691162px;line-height:19px;">Thanks very much! Enjoy,</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.3333339691162px;line-height:19px;">-Kevin<br><a href="http://twitter.com/kekline">-Follow me on Twitter!</a><br><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/1/113032055249023350257?rel=author">-Google Author</a><br><a href="http://kevinekline.com/">-More content at KevinEKline.com</a></p><h1 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:19px;"><br></h1><h2 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:19px;">Microsoft SQL Server Internals &amp; Architecture</h2><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.3333339691162px;line-height:19px;"><span>Let’s face it. You can effectively do many IT jobs related to Microsoft SQL Server without knowing the internals of how SQL Server works. Many great developers, DBAs, and designers get their day-to-day work completed on time and with reasonable quality while never really knowing what’s happening behind the scenes. But if you want to take your skills to the next level, it’s critical to know SQL Server’s internal processes and architecture. This session will answer questions like:&nbsp;</span><br><br><span>- What are the various areas of memory inside of SQL Server?&nbsp;</span><br><span>- How are queries handled behind the scenes?&nbsp;</span><br><span>- What does SQL Server do with procedural code, like functions, procedures, and triggers?&nbsp;</span><br><span>- What happens during checkpoints? Lazywrites?&nbsp;</span><br><span>- How are IOs handled with regards to transaction logs and database?&nbsp;</span><br><span>- What happens when transaction logs and databases grow or shrinks?&nbsp;</span><br><br><span>This fast paced session will take you through many aspects of the internal operations of SQL Server and, for those topics we don’t cover, will point you to resources where you can get more information.</span></p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.3333339691162px;line-height:19px;"><img class="mce-object mce-object-iframe" width="427" height="356" style="margin-bottom:5px;max-width:100%;" src="http://sqlblog.com/controlpanel/blogs/data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7"></p><div style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.3333339691162px;line-height:19px;margin-bottom:5px;"><strong><a title="Microsoft SQL Server internals &amp; architecture" target="_blank" href="https://www.slideshare.net/kkline84/ug-sql-server-internals-architecture">Microsoft SQL Server internals &amp; architecture</a>&nbsp;</strong>from&nbsp;<strong><a target="_blank" href="http://www.slideshare.net/kkline84">Kevin Kline</a></strong></div><div style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.3333339691162px;line-height:19px;margin-bottom:5px;"><br></div><h2 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:19px;margin-bottom:5px;">Convince Me - Persuasion Techniques that Get Things Done for IT Pros</h2><div style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.3333339691162px;line-height:19px;margin-bottom:5px;"><span>Ever wanted to convince the boss try something new, but didn't know where to start? Ever tried to lead your peers only to fail to achieve your goals? This session teaches you the eight techniques of influencing IT professionals, so that you can innovate and achieve change in your organization.&nbsp;</span><br><br><span>1. Learn about the fundamental difference between influence and authority and how you can achieve a high degree of influence without explicit authority.&nbsp;</span><br><span>2. Learn the eight techniques of influencing IT professionals, when to apply them, and how to best use them.&nbsp;</span><br><span>3. Discover the communication and procedural techniques that ensure your ideas get a hearing by bosses and peers, and how to best win support for them.&nbsp;</span></div><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.3333339691162px;line-height:19px;"><img class="mce-object mce-object-iframe" width="427" height="356" style="margin-bottom:5px;max-width:100%;" src="http://sqlblog.com/controlpanel/blogs/data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7"></p><div style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.3333339691162px;line-height:19px;margin-bottom:5px;"><strong><a title="Convince me – persuasion techniques that get things done" target="_blank" href="https://www.slideshare.net/kkline84/convince-me-persuasion-techniques-that-get-things-done">Convince me – persuasion techniques that get things done</a>&nbsp;</strong>from&nbsp;<strong><a target="_blank" href="http://www.slideshare.net/kkline84">Kevin Kline</a></strong></div><div style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.3333339691162px;line-height:19px;margin-bottom:5px;"><br></div><h2 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:19px;margin-bottom:5px;">Ten Query Tuning Techniques Every SQL Developer Should Know</h2><div style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.3333339691162px;line-height:19px;margin-bottom:5px;"><span>SELECT statements have a reputation for being very easy to write, but hard to write very well. This session will take you through ten of the most problematic patterns and anti-patterns when writing queries and how to deal with them all. Loaded with live demonstrations and useful techniques, this session will teach you how to take your Microsoft SQL Server queries mundane to masterful.</span></div><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.3333339691162px;line-height:19px;"><img class="mce-object mce-object-iframe" width="427" height="356" style="margin-bottom:5px;max-width:100%;" src="http://sqlblog.com/controlpanel/blogs/data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7"></p><div style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.3333339691162px;line-height:19px;margin-bottom:5px;"><strong><a title="Ten query tuning techniques every SQL Server programmer should know" target="_blank" href="https://www.slideshare.net/kkline84/ten-query-tuning-techniques-every-sql-server-programmer-should-know">Ten query tuning techniques every SQL Server programmer should know</a>&nbsp;</strong>from&nbsp;<strong><a target="_blank" href="http://www.slideshare.net/kkline84">Kevin Kline</a></strong></div><div style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.3333339691162px;line-height:19px;margin-bottom:5px;"><br></div><h2 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:19px;margin-bottom:5px;">Top 10 DBA Mistakes on Microsoft SQL Server</h2><div style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.3333339691162px;line-height:19px;margin-bottom:5px;"><span>Microsoft SQL Server is easier to administrate than any other mainstream relational database on the market. But “easier than everyone else” doesn’t mean it’s easy. And it doesn’t mean that database administration on SQL Server is problem free. Since SQL Server frequently grows up from small, home-grown applications, many IT professionals end up encountering issues that others have tackled and solved years ago. Why not learn from those who first blazed the trails of database administration, so that we don’t make the same mistakes over and over again. In fact, wouldn’t you like to learn about those mistakes before they ever happen?&nbsp;</span><br><br><span>There is a short list of mistakes that, if you know of them in advance, will make your life much easier. These mistakes are the “low hanging fruit” of application design, development, and administration. Once you apply the lessons learned from this session, you’ll find yourself performing at a higher level of efficiency and effectiveness than before.</span></div><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.3333339691162px;line-height:19px;"><img class="mce-object mce-object-iframe" width="427" height="356" style="margin-bottom:5px;max-width:100%;" src="http://sqlblog.com/controlpanel/blogs/data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7"></p><div style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.3333339691162px;line-height:19px;margin-bottom:5px;"><strong><a title="Top 10 DBA Mistakes on Microsoft SQL Server" target="_blank" href="https://www.slideshare.net/kkline84/top-10-dba-mistakes-on-microsoft-sql-server-administration-mistakes">Top 10 DBA Mistakes on Microsoft SQL Server</a>&nbsp;</strong>from&nbsp;<strong><a target="_blank" href="http://www.slideshare.net/kkline84">Kevin Kline</a></strong></div><h3 class="zemanta-related-title" style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:19px;margin:0px 0px 10px;padding:0px;clear:both;">Related articles</h3><ul class="zemanta-article-ul zemanta-article-ul-image" style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.3333339691162px;line-height:19px;margin:0px;padding:0px;overflow:hidden;"><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li" style="padding:0px;list-style:none;display:block;float:left;vertical-align:top;text-align:left;width:104px;font-size:12px;margin:0px 5px 10px 0px;background:none;"><a target="_blank" style="padding:2px;display:block;text-decoration:none;" href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/cansql/archive/2014/08/18/18-free-sql-server-2014-azure-and-bi-virtual-labs.aspx"><img style="border-top-left-radius:3px;border-top-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-left-radius:3px;padding:0px;margin:0px;border:0px;display:block;width:100px;max-width:100%;" src="http://i.zemanta.com/noimg_10_150_150.jpg"></a><a target="_blank" style="display:block;overflow:hidden;text-decoration:none;line-height:12pt;height:80px;padding:5px 2px 0px;" href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/cansql/archive/2014/08/18/18-free-sql-server-2014-azure-and-bi-virtual-labs.aspx">Blog Post: 18 Free SQL Server 2014, Azure and BI virtual labs</a></li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li" style="padding:0px;list-style:none;display:block;float:left;vertical-align:top;text-align:left;width:104px;font-size:12px;margin:0px 5px 10px 0px;background:none;"><a target="_blank" style="padding:2px;display:block;text-decoration:none;" href="http://www.eweek.com/cloud/microsoft-kicks-off-its-nosql-azure-documentdb-preview.html"><img style="border-top-left-radius:3px;border-top-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-left-radius:3px;padding:0px;margin:0px;border:0px;display:block;width:100px;max-width:100%;" src="http://i.zemanta.com/293342475_150_150.jpg"></a><a target="_blank" style="display:block;overflow:hidden;text-decoration:none;line-height:12pt;height:80px;padding:5px 2px 0px;" href="http://www.eweek.com/cloud/microsoft-kicks-off-its-nosql-azure-documentdb-preview.html">Microsoft Kicks Off Its NoSQL Azure DocumentDB Preview</a></li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li" style="padding:0px;list-style:none;display:block;float:left;vertical-align:top;text-align:left;width:104px;font-size:12px;margin:0px 5px 10px 0px;background:none;"><a target="_blank" style="padding:2px;display:block;text-decoration:none;" href="http://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/tpc-h-benchmark-establishes-cisco-ucs-c240-as-the-fastest-two-socket-server-for-microsoft-sql-server-2014/"><img style="border-top-left-radius:3px;border-top-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-left-radius:3px;padding:0px;margin:0px;border:0px;display:block;width:100px;max-width:100%;" src="http://i.zemanta.com/292780141_150_150.jpg"></a><a target="_blank" style="display:block;overflow:hidden;text-decoration:none;line-height:12pt;height:80px;padding:5px 2px 0px;" href="http://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/tpc-h-benchmark-establishes-cisco-ucs-c240-as-the-fastest-two-socket-server-for-microsoft-sql-server-2014/">TPC-H Benchmark Establishes Cisco UCS C240 as the Fastest Two-socket Server for Microsoft SQL Server 2014</a></li></ul>AdventureWorks 2014 Sample Databases Are Now Availablehttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/jimmy_may/archive/2014/08/20/adventureworks-2014-sample-databases-are-now-available.aspxWed, 20 Aug 2014 15:30:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:54910aspiringgeek<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Where in the World is AdventureWorks?</span></h3>
<p>Recently, SQL Community feedback from twitter prompted me to look in vain for SQL Server 2014 versions of the AdventureWorks sample databases we’ve all grown to know &amp; love.</p>
<p>I searched Codeplex, then used the bing &amp; even the google in an effort to locate them, yet all I could find were samples on different sites highlighting specific technologies, an incomplete collection inconsistent with the experience we users had learned to expect.&nbsp; I began pinging internally &amp; learned that <i>an update to AdventureWorks wasn’t even on the road map</i>.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Fortunately, SQL Marketing manager Luis Daniel Soto Maldonado (<a href="http://twitter.com/luisdans" mce_href="http://twitter.com/luisdans">t</a>) lent a sympathetic ear &amp; got the update ball rolling; his direct report Darmodi Komo recently announced the release of the shiny new sample databases for OLTP, DW, Tabular, and Multidimensional models to supplement the extant In-Memory OLTP sample DB.&nbsp;</p>
<h3><b><span style="text-decoration:underline;">What Success Looks Like</span></b></h3>
<p>In my correspondence with the team, here’s how I defined success:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>1. Sample AdventureWorks DBs hosted on Codeplex showcasing SQL Server 2014’s latest-&amp;-greatest features, including:&nbsp;</p>
<ul>
<li>In-Memory OLTP (aka Hekaton)</li>
<li>Clustered Columnstore</li>
<li>Online Operations</li>
<li>Resource Governor IO</li>
</ul>
<p>2. Where it makes sense to do so, consolidate the DBs (e.g., showcasing Columnstore likely involves a separate DW DB)</p>
<p>3. Documentation to support experimenting with these features</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As Microsoft Senior SDE Bonnie Feinberg (<a href="http://sqlblog.com/b/bonniefe" mce_href="http://sqlblog.com/b/bonniefe">b</a>) stated, “I think it would be great to see an AdventureWorks for SQL 2014.&nbsp; It would be super helpful for third-party book authors and trainers.&nbsp; It also provides a common way to share examples in blog posts and forum discussions, for example.”&nbsp;</p>
<p>Exactly.&nbsp; We’ve established a rich &amp; robust tradition of sample databases on Codeplex.&nbsp; This is what our community &amp; our customers expect.&nbsp; The prompt response achieves what we all aim to do, i.e., manifests the Service Design Engineering mantra of “delighting the customer”.&nbsp; Kudos to Luis’s team in SQL Server Marketing &amp; Kevin Liu’s team in SQL Server Engineering for doing so.</p>
<h3><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Download AdventureWorks 2014</span></h3>
<p><a href="https://msftdbprodsamples.codeplex.com/releases/view/125550" mce_href="https://msftdbprodsamples.codeplex.com/releases/view/125550">Download your copies of SQL Server 2014 AdventureWorks sample databases here</a>.</p>
<p align="center"><a href="https://msftdbprodsamples.codeplex.com/releases/view/125550" title="AdventureWorks2014" mce_href="https://msftdbprodsamples.codeplex.com/releases/view/125550"><img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_XjcDyZkJqHg/TPaaRcaysbI/AAAAAAAAAFo/b1U3q-qbTjY/AdventureWorks%20Logo%5B5%5D.png?imgmax=800" alt=""></a></p>Third Party Applications and Other Acts of Violence Against Your SQL Serverhttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/kevin_kline/archive/2014/08/12/third-party-applications-and-other-acts-of-violence-against-your-sql-server.aspxTue, 12 Aug 2014 18:36:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:54785KKline<p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:19px;">I just got finished reading a great blog post from my buddy,&nbsp;Thomas LaRock (<a href="https://twitter.com/#!/SQLRockstar">t</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://www.thomaslarock.com/">b</a>), in which he describes a useful personal policy he used to track changes made to his SQL Servers when installing third-party products. Note that I'm talking about line-of-business applications here - your inventory management systems and help desk ticketing apps. I'm not talking about monitoring and tuning applications since they, by their very nature, need a different sort of access to your back-end server resources. (Full disclosure: both Tom and I currently work for different&nbsp;<a title="Kevin's employer" href="http://sqlsentry.com/">tools vendors</a>. But we're both wearing our former enterprise DBA hats for this discussion).</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:19px;">You can read Tom's blog post, as well as download the T-SQL script which checks for the most common vendor red flags,&nbsp;<a href="http://thomaslarock.com/2014/08/know-installer-database/">HERE</a>. I strongly recommend that you read this post and utilize his script, or some similar technology such as&nbsp;<a title="MSDN article on SQL Server Policy-Based Management" href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb510667.aspx">Policy-Based Management</a>, to accomplish the same ends.&nbsp;I penciled in a quick comment on Tom's post. But as my comment began to lengthen, I realized it might make a nice supplement to his insights as a blog post of my own.</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:19px;">So here's my addition to Tom's post:</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:19px;text-align:center;"><span><strong>Third-Party Applications Also Raise a Red Flag for Things They DO NOT&nbsp;CHANGE&nbsp;in Your SQL Server, BUT SHOULD.</strong></span></p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:19px;">One area where I frequently regretted the need for vendor apps, when I worked as an enterprise DBA, was in security. Nothing sends quite as strong a message of "We don't really care enough to work hard on this application" like an&nbsp;<em><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><strong>app which&nbsp;uses only the</strong>&nbsp;</span><strong><span style="text-decoration:underline;">SA account for user access</span></strong></em>.</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:19px;"><a href="http://kevinekline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/computer-network-security.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-6157" alt="computer-network-security" width="300" height="225" style="display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="http://kevinekline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/computer-network-security-300x225.jpg"></a></p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:19px;">This practice of using SA for a line-of-business application is so bad on so many levels. My experiences showed that most apps that used only SA to access the database had many other problems. First of all, you could be certain that security was the least of their concerns and that there'd be other flagrant breaches of database security best practices. But often, upon deeper inspection, I would discover that use of SA as the only account for an application has the harbinger of database design issues, lurking performance problems, and lousy code. That one red flag foretold&nbsp;of very bad things to come with that vendor's product.</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:19px;">Now in case you were hiding in a cave and/or refused to ever read the news, I want to remind you that&nbsp;<a href="http://mashable.com/2014/08/05/russian-hacker-passwords/">SQL injection hacker attacks</a>&nbsp;are one of the most damaging of all hacks on the Internet. And much of the time, those SQL injection attack happen because of sloppy &nbsp;coding practices such as using SA for standard transaction processing. Surely you mean "sloppy security practices", Kevin? Nope. I mean&nbsp;<em>CODING</em>. The main reason these applications rely on SA is because the development team did not want to code a more robust authorization system. "Hey, let's give it ALL to the end-user. They know what they're doing, right?" Well, sometimes. But you can't count on that assumption. And you can also assume that bad people who are not users will want to break in to the application. Again, there's that word 'harbinger' again. It just sounds so fricken ominous, doesn't it? But I digress...</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:19px;">The next time you are face with the buy versus build decision and the executives choose to buy, make sure that the application DOES NOT USE SA for standard transactional data processing.&nbsp;For example, if your company installs a new help desk ticketing application,&nbsp;make sure the application comes with at least a distinct account for&nbsp;data readers, a data writer, and&nbsp;for super-users,&nbsp;FOR THAT ONE DATABASE.</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:19px;">If you don't know whether an application and its backend database use SA or not, be sure to check. (Tom's script helps you do that). And if you're able to influence future buy vs build decisions, be sure to make this a sticking point. Nothing helps an application vendor clean up their act, technologically speaking, like telling them WHY they are losing your business. You'll make the world a better place.</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:19px;">So what do you think? Are there other things about installing a vendor database that raise a red flag when they&nbsp;<em>do not change</em>? What are they? I'd love to hear your comments.</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:19px;">Many thanks,</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:19px;">-Kevin</p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:19px;"><a href="http://twitter.com/kekline">-Follow me on Twitter!</a><br><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/1/113032055249023350257?rel=author">-Google Author</a></p><p style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:19px;"><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/1/113032055249023350257?rel=author"></a><a style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;" href="http://kevinekline.com/">-More content at KevinEKline.com</a></p>Writing and Delivering a Successful Full-Day Technology Seminarhttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/kevin_kline/archive/2014/05/06/writing-and-delivering-a-successful-full-day-technology-seminar.aspxTue, 06 May 2014 14:14:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:53825KKline<p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">I was recently chatting with the current President of&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sqlpass.org/">PASS</a>,&nbsp;Thomas LaRock (<a href="https://twitter.com/#!/SQLRockstar">Twitter</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://www.thomaslarock.com/">Blog</a>), and Pieter Vanhove (<a href="https://twitter.com/Pieter_Vanhove%E2%80%8E">Twitter</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://pietervanhove.azurewebsites.net/">Blog</a>), a prominent SQL Server consultant and expert in Belgium, about how I go about building and presenting a full-day technical seminar. In the SQL Server world, we tend to call these "pre-cons", as in pre-conference seminar, because they're typically offered as paid add-ons occurring prior to a full technical conference. We call them that even when they come at the end of the conference and, heck, when there's no conference at all.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;"><a href="http://kevinekline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Kevin-and-Kendal-PASS-2013.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-5884" alt="Kevin and Kendal, PASS 2013" width="580" height="385" style="border:0px;cursor:default;display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="http://kevinekline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Kevin-and-Kendal-PASS-2013-1024x681.jpg"></a></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;text-align:center;"><em>Kevin and Kendal Van Dyke preparing to kick off a session at the PASS Summit 2013</em></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">Personally, I have developed and delivered six different pre-cons over the years. Four are purely technical and two are professional development oriented. I keep them up to date and deliver around six per year these days, though I've done as many as ten in a single year. (But that was because I had a daughter's wedding to pay for.&nbsp;<em>Shameless plug - HIRE ME to deliver one of these in house.</em>)</p><h2 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:21px;">The Foundation of a Good Pre-Con Seminar is a Good Topic</h2><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">There are a ton of perennially favorite topics which, once you write the session, you’ll be able to present over and over again. One interesting technique to choose a good topic, if you're not sure what you want to present, is to use Google Insight to see what are the most popular variations of a topic you feel strongly about.&nbsp;Here are some additional thoughts on choosing a topic:</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The most popular topics are always focused on&nbsp;<strong>‘help me do my current work better/faster/stronger’</strong>. Broad, but fundamental topics tend to draw bigger audiences than niche topics. However, some events have a large enough attendance that even niche topics will pack a room. And always remember that your event organizer's goal is to pack the room, no matter how much they like you.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;padding-left:30px;">a.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The biggest winners in my market are server troubleshooting &amp; performance tuning (for DBAs) and various topics on better SQL coding (for devs). That’s why a session on performance tuning or coding best practices will bring in more attendees than, say, a session on features in the newest release or professional development. That’s sad for me, since I love leadership and career training and have a really good full day pre-con on the topic, but they&nbsp;<i>never&nbsp;</i>bring in more than 1/3 of what the biggest tech session brings in. And don't forget - people love to hear about mistakes to avoid just as much as how to do things better. So "gotcha" topics can bring in just as many attendees as a best practices session.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;padding-left:30px;">b.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Sessions that drill into a&nbsp;<i>hot and hyped</i>&nbsp;new technology tend to do really well too. So something like ‘Implementing Big Data with SQL Server’ can bring in a big crowd. But technologies that are too broad and ill-defined have the opposite effect on attendance. For example, many people still don't "get" Azure or cloud computing in general. So, while it's definitely a worthwhile topic, don't be disappointed if you don't put a butt in every seat.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;padding-left:30px;">c. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Some pre-cons are feature-oriented, like Replication or Disaster Recovery. Many of these features are very cool, but are only available in SQL Server Enterprise Edition. For example, some of the Always On Availability Group features are EE only. Less people have Enterprise Edition than Standard Edition, so less people will come to an Enterprise Edition-oriented session.&nbsp;&nbsp;The features you plan to discuss will directly correlate to your attendance numbers. I'm telling you to avoid these topics, rather just expect it to have an impact in the size of your audience.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; You will absolutely spend way too much time researching and developing your slide deck. So it’s also always good to&nbsp;<strong>choose a topic you want to learn more about</strong>. This’ll not only improve the attendees skills, but yours as well. Want to learn more about Hekaton? Then include it in your pre-con. Want to learn more about SQL Server query tuning? Write and deliver a session on it. You'll learn it better than you ever would, independently, because you&nbsp;<i>know</i>&nbsp;you'll get tough questions and you want to be prepared for those.</p><h2 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:21px;">You Can Attract and 'Manage' Your Audience Through Your Abstract</h2><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">This is the second most important step. You can’t control what your audience is like once they get into the room. But you can&nbsp;<span style="text-decoration:underline;"><em>strongly influence</em></span>&nbsp;who decides to come into the room in the first place with your session title and abstract.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">Personally, I believe your title should immediately inform the reader of the topic and who is intended to reach, such as "<em>Cutting Edge Debugging Techniques for the .NET Develope</em>r" or "<em>Top 10 Mistakes New Tech Managers Make"</em>. The title is alone constitutes 60-75% (by my careful, non-scientific assessment) of &nbsp;what will drive an attendee to your session. In fact,<em>&nbsp;many attendees never even read the session abstract</em>, unless there are two sessions at the same time that seem equally worth attending. In that case, the abstract is often the tie-breaker.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">Be sure that your abstract explains not only what the session is about, but what the topic is and why people should care about it. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a session abstract that names a specific, niche feature in the title but doesn't tell what that feature is in the abstract. I once saw a session whose title was, and I paraphrase, "<em>Introduction to the Flux Capacitor</em>". The abstract said I'd learn three cool was to use the flux capacitor and would see live demos of the flux capacitor in action. But it didn't say what tool the flux capacitor was used in (.NET? BI? Java? SQL Server? SharePoint?), who would use it, what it did, or why it matter.&nbsp;And I always like to include at least three high-level topics the attendee will leave having learned.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">Having said all of that, I feel like there's no better write-up of how to write a top quality session abstracts that in the blog post by Adam Machanic (<a href="http://sqlblog.com/blogs/adam_machanic/default.aspx">b</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/#!/AdamMachanic">t</a>)&nbsp;entitled "<a href="http://sqlblog.com/blogs/adam_machanic/archive/2013/02/22/capturing-attention-writing-great-session-descriptions.aspx">Capturing Attention: Writing Great Session Descriptions</a>". This is&nbsp;<em>such a good overview of doing abstract writing the right way&nbsp;</em>that I wish technical conferences would make this required reading for their speaker submissions. (Are you listening&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sqlsaturday.com/">SQL Saturday</a>?)</p><h2 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:21px;">Planning and Building Your Presentation</h2><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">A lot of accomplished speakers who've done one-hour sessions become both excited and terrified about doing a full 7- to 8-hour session. And one of the first fears that people share with me is that they won't have enough to say or that they'll be able to fill the time. Believe me - this will&nbsp;<em><strong>not</strong>&nbsp;</em>be your problem. In fact, if you properly research your presentation and read what other writers and bloggers have to say, you will have difficulty fitting everything you want to talk about within your allotted time.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">Here are some planning tips I use for planning and building my sessions:</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;"><span style="line-height:1.5em;">1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I estimate that I’ll speak 3 minutes per slide. Then I do the math for how many slides I can fit into the amount time I have in the given session slot. For example, a 75 minute session should not have more than 20’ish slides, taking into account some time for the introductory and closing slides, questions, and demos.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Attendees are idiots AND geniuses simultaneously. One surprising thing I’ve learned after averaging about 6 pre-cons per year for the last few years is that no one reads the session-level advice (i.e. whether it’s a 200, 300, or 400 level session). They always read the titles, and possibly skim the abstract, and then make their decision based on that.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;padding-left:30px;">a.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>Here’s an&nbsp;<b>important part tip</b>&nbsp;for your presentation</i>: you will definitely have plenty, maybe even a surprising number, of attendees who don’t know the basics of your topic. For example, in a recent pre-con called "<em><a href="http://sqlperformance.com/2014/04/sql-performance/sql-intersection-slides-and-samples">50 Things Every SQL Developer Should Know</a>"</em>&nbsp;that my buddy, Aaron Bertrand (<a href="http://sqlblog.com/blogs/aaron_bertrand/rss.aspx">b</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/#!/AaronBertrand">t</a>) and I presented at&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sqlintersection.com/">SQL Intersection</a>, I&nbsp;now include a whole section discussing how the plan cache works and how to read execution plans. I clearly told attendees that they needed to know those things as prerequisites, but I’d say about 40-50% of the attendees in fact&nbsp;<span style="text-decoration:underline;">did not</span>&nbsp;know the fundamentals.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;padding-left:30px;">b.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>At the same time</i>: You will have attendees who are quite advanced. I try to identify those kinds of attendees early on (often by explicitly asking who has a lot of experience), then I try to include them as&nbsp;<span style="text-decoration:underline;"><em>allies</em></span>&nbsp;in the presentation. I ask their feedback a lot and give them a lot of eye contact. If there’s a question that seems tough, I might turn towards them and say “Have you ever seen that in your shop? How did you deal with it?” Usually, if they’re experienced and knowledgeable, then they love to share. It’s often as enjoyable for them to be recognized as smart as it would be to learn some big, new skill or technique. That helps keeps both ends of the talent spectrum equally happy.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;"><a href="http://kevinekline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/IMG_1754.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5885" alt="IMG_1754" width="177" height="300" style="border:0px;cursor:default;display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="http://kevinekline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/IMG_1754-177x300.jpg"></a></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">3.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Demos are the most stressful part of even one-hour sessions. It’s an order of magnitude worse in a day-long session. In my case, I strive for a high degree of deliberately assessed order and standardization:</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;padding-left:30px;"><span style="line-height:1.5em;">a.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><em style="line-height:1.5em;"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Never</span></em><span style="line-height:1.5em;">&nbsp;install new software or change your configuration within 48 hours of your presentation. If some enterprise policy forces a change, assume the worst and retest all of your demos.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;padding-left:30px;">b.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Include in the PPT notes panel the exact path and filename for a demo file that a particular slide relates to. It's not as important if you recently wrote the slide deck. But it becomes&nbsp;<em>very&nbsp;</em>important if you wrote the session a while ago and no longer know all of the facts cold about your demos. &nbsp;For that matter,&nbsp;I’m now putting a number prefix on all of my SQL scripts so I can see which to load into SSMS in what order. Also, SSMS orders open tabs automatically. So numbering them works much better than giving only an alphabetic name.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;padding-left:30px;">c.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; If you’re running short on time, explain the concepts and tell where attendees can find the demo scripts, but skip the demos themselves.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;padding-left:30px;">d.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; One thing I’ve started to do, especially for really complex or annoying demos (e.g. a demo involving multiple servers such as a big Availability Group), is to either screenshot the whole demo process or make a video of the demo using&nbsp;<a href="http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html">Camtasia</a>. Then I show the slides or the video instead of the real work environment. That way I can illustrate the principles involved without ever risking something going wrong. Attendees don’t seem to mind at all.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;padding-left:30px;">e.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;This is so axiomatic that I shouldn't have to mention it, but just in case, create your demos in such a way that they require very little new typing. If you have to do more than change a parameter or two, then you need to work on your demos a bit more.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">4.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;For goodness' sake, get to the room as early as is practical and get comfortable with the learning environment. Expect problems with setup. Many laptops have issues with certain types of projects and require a lot of tinkering to get working properly. &nbsp;And carry spare equipment for crazy and unexpected issues. Batteries for your wireless mouse is practical, of course, but other mind-boggling things can happen. For example, I've spoken at many facilities which&nbsp;<em>did not have an electrical outlet anywhere near the podium</em>. My lesson learned? I always carry a 3m extension chord.</p><h2 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:21px;">Making the Session Memorable</h2><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">There are several small tips and tricks you can use to make sure your session is memorable and well-regarded. (And when you have well-regarded sessions, you get invited to do&nbsp;<em>more</em>&nbsp;session. It's a positive feedback loop, engineers!) Here are some of my favorite techniques:</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">1.&nbsp;<span style="text-decoration:underline;"><strong>Work with a co-presenter</strong></span>. Personally, I&nbsp;<em>love&nbsp;</em>working with co-presenters. This might not be your cup of tea, since you have to split revenue, and I can respect that. But hear me out. On the one hand, the shared workload for both writing and presenting the pre-con is much easier. And don't forget that most of us aren't used to standing or speaking for 8-hrs straight. So being able to tag-team with another presenter off and on through the day can be like mana from heaven at times when you're flagging. On the other hand, audiences find&nbsp;<em>dialogue</em>&nbsp;much more entertaining than&nbsp;<em>monologue.&nbsp;</em>Have you ever noticed that the morning radio show on your drive to work is no longer a single, lonely DJ? There is almost always at least two and sometimes as many as a half-dozen people on the "<em>!!WKRP Morning Team!! Caffeinate your day!!</em>" show, and sometimes even skits and almost-comedy bits. People just enjoy that format more and it translates into measurably ratings for the radio stations. It will for you too.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">2.&nbsp;<span style="text-decoration:underline;"><strong>Quiz the attendees as you go along</strong></span>. You want people to remember your session and, even better, recommend it to others. One trick that I learned when I was trying to master recall of names is to repeat a person's name back a time or two before the introduction concludes. You can use this tip, as a presenter, to help your attendees remember aspects of your session. After you've advanced the slide, find a reason to ask a question relevant to an earlier slide. In some cases, I've started to substitute old fashioned slide notes pages (i.e. a list of standard bullet points) for a quiz sheet, which is essential the same list of bullet points with a single key word as a fill-in-the-blank. The attendees will really get into making sure those blanks are filled it. If you miss one, they'll make you go back and tell them what goes in the blank. (<em>Hooray! They were paying attention!</em>) Make it fun. Tease them jokingly if they forgot something you just talked about. But keep the attendees engaged and mindful of the major lessons.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">3.&nbsp;<strong><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Provide useful&nbsp;takeaways</span></strong>. Attendees love to be able to reference a list of takeaways. Just think about all the great sessions you have ever been to before. They usually have some level of detail for you to consume easily and walk away with or reference later. They have clean demo scripts with lots of comments that would stand on their own without slides or someone speaking. They offer the attendee the ability to be immersed in the "here and now" and the ability to come back for a summary to jog their memory. In my case, I actually have a password protected area of my website where attendees can download the slide decks and demo scripts to all of my pre-cons. My theory being that the attendee has paid for this training, so I want to provide an incentive for them to view me as one of the Go-To references going forward, to encourage them to attend other pre-cons of mine, and to nudge them to promote me to others.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">Well, that’s my BULK INSERT for pulling off a successful and repeatable pre-con. Have you done a full day training session yourself? What sort of techniques have you learned to make your session more effective and memorable? Share your thoughts and questions here.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">Many thanks,</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">-Kevin</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;"><a href="http://twitter.com/kekline">-Follow me on Twitter!</a><br><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/1/113032055249023350257?rel=author">-Google Author</a></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">&nbsp;</p>Top 10 DBA Mistakes on SQL Server. (Now with Prizes for Participation!)http://sqlblog.com/blogs/kevin_kline/archive/2014/04/09/top-10-dba-mistakes-on-sql-server-now-with-prizes-for-participation.aspxWed, 09 Apr 2014 15:07:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:53564KKline<div><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14px;line-height:21px;"><i>The first big mistake I made as a DBA was coming to work with my zipper wide open. But I digress.</i></span></div><div><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;text-align:center;"><a href="http://http//sqlsentry.tv/top-10-administrative-mistakes-on-sql-server/"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-5869" alt="top 10 dba mistakes" width="683" height="498" style="border:0px;cursor:default;display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="http://kevinekline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/top-10-dba-mistakes.jpg"></a></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;text-align:center;"><em>Hear one of my most popular session via streaming media at SQLSentry.TV!</em></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">Microsoft SQL Server is easier to administrate than any other relational database on the market.&nbsp; But “easier than everyone else” doesn’t mean it’s easy.&nbsp; And it doesn’t mean that database administration on SQL Server is problem free.&nbsp; And since SQL Server is constantly growing from small, home-grown applications, many IT professionals end up encountering issues that others had tackled and solved years ago.&nbsp; Why not learn from those who first blazed the trails of database administration, so that we don’t make the same mistakes over and over again.&nbsp; In fact, wouldn’t you like to learn about those mistakes before they ever happen? &nbsp;</p><h2 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:21px;">Click image or here to watch, or download the slide deck:&nbsp;<a href="http://sqlsentry.tv/top-10-administrative-mistakes-on-sql-server/">K.E. Kline's Top 10 DBA Mistakes on SQL Server</a></h2><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;"><span style="line-height:1.5em;">This session will answer questions like:</span></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;"><span style="line-height:1.5em;">-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; What’s the most common hardware-related mistake that DBAs make and why?</span></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; How does Microsoft's own marketing buzz lull DBAs into complacency?</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Why do inexperienced database administrators make their own job more difficult and less efficient?</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;"><span style="line-height:1.5em;">There is a short list of mistakes that, if you know of them in advance, will make your life&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height:1.5em;text-decoration:underline;">much</span><span style="line-height:1.5em;">&nbsp;easier.&nbsp; These mistakes are the “low hanging fruit” of &nbsp;database administration.&nbsp; Once you apply the lessons learned from this session, you’ll find yourself performing at a higher level of efficiency and effectiveness than before.</span></p><h2 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:21px;">Prizes for Sharing!</h2><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">Share your stories with me in the comments of the&nbsp;<a href="http://sqlsentry.tv/top-10-administrative-mistakes-on-sql-server/">Top 10 DBA Mistakes on SQL Server video webpage</a>&nbsp;and I'll enter you in a drawing! I want to hear your stories of tragic DBA mistakes and blunders. Extra points for funny, absurd, or just plain incomprehensible mistakes. Extra points for mistakes that epitomize a pattern or a frequently encountered sort of mistake. After all, we're not just trying to get a chuckle from other people's problems, we're trying to learn from them so we don't&nbsp;<strong><em>repeat</em></strong>&nbsp;those mistakes.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">The winner(s) will receive either a signed copy of&nbsp;<em><a href="http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596518851.do">SQL in a Nutshell</a>&nbsp;</em>(my most popular book),&nbsp;<a href="http://www.informit.com/store/microsoft-sql-server-2012-management-and-administration-9780672336003"><em>Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Management and Administration</em></a>&nbsp;(my newest title, as co-author with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=5908754&amp;locale=en_US&amp;trk=tyah&amp;trkInfo=tarId%3A1397055398981%2Ctas%3Aross%20mistry%2Cidx%3A1-1-1">Ross Mistry</a>), or a license for SQL Sentry's uber-popular query tuning tool,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sqlsentry.com/products/plan-explorer/sql-server-query-view">Plan Explorer PRO</a>&nbsp;(a $295 value).</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;"><span style="line-height:1.5em;">Many thanks,</span></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">-Kevin</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;"><a href="http://twitter.com/kekline">-Follow me on Twitter!</a><br><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/1/113032055249023350257?rel=author">-Google Author</a></p></div>SQL Server 2014 Columnstore Indexes: The Big Deckhttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/jimmy_may/archive/2014/03/24/sql-server-2014-columnstore-indexes-the-big-deck.aspxMon, 24 Mar 2014 13:37:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:53336aspiringgeek<h3>The History</h3>
<p>Though Columnstore indexes were introduced in SQL Server 2012; they're still largely unknown.&nbsp; In 2012, some adoption blockers remained; yet Columnstore was nonetheless a game changer for many apps.&nbsp; In SQL Server 2014, potential blockers have been largely removed &amp; Columnstore is going to profoundly change the way we interact with our data.</p>
<p>I&rsquo;ve been working with Columnstore Indexes since Denali alpha bits were available.&nbsp; As SQL CAT Customer Lab PM, I hosted over a half-dozen customers in my lab proving out our builds, finding &amp; entering bugs, &amp; working directly with the product group &amp; our customers to fix them.&nbsp;</p>
<h3>The Why</h3>
<p>Why Columnstore?&nbsp; If we&rsquo;re looking for a subset of columns from one or a few rows,&nbsp; given the right indexes, SQL Server has long been able to do a superlative job of providing an answer.&nbsp; But if we&rsquo;re asking a question which by design needs to hit lots of rows&mdash;reporting, aggregations, grouping, scans, DW workloads, etc., SQL Server has never had a good mechanism&mdash;until Columnstore.&nbsp; Columnstore was a competitive necessity&mdash;our Sybase &amp; Oracle customers needed a solution to satisfy what was heretofore a significant feature &amp; performance deficit in SQL Server.&nbsp; Our leadership &amp; product team stepped up &amp; provided a superb response.</p>
<h3>The Presentation</h3>
<p>I&rsquo;ve delivered my Columnstore presentation over 20 times to audiences internal &amp; external, small &amp; large, remote &amp; in-person, including the <a href="http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2013/Sessions/SessionDetails.aspx?sid=5490" target="_blank">2013 PASS Summit</a>, two major Microsoft conferences (TechReady 17 &amp; TechReady 18), &amp; several PASS user groups (<a href="http://bi.sqlpass.org" target="_blank">BI Virtual chapter</a>, <a href="http://www.indypass.org" target="_blank">IndyPASS</a>, <a href="http://olympia.sqlpass.org" target="_blank">Olympia</a>, <a href="http://pugetsound.sqlpass.org" target="_blank">PNWSQL</a>, <a href="http://slcsql.com" target="_blank">Salt Lake City</a>, <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2350696" target="_blank">Utah County</a>, <a href="http://denver.sqlpass.org" target="_blank">Denver</a>, &amp; <a href="http://nocodp.org" target="_blank">Northern Colorado</a>).</p>
<p>The deck has evolved significantly &amp; includes a broad overview, architecture, best practices, &amp; an amalgam of exciting success stories.&nbsp; The purpose is to educate you &amp; convince you that Columnstore is a compelling feature, to encourage you to experiment, &amp; to help you determine whether Columnstore could justify upgrading to SQL Server 2014.</p>
<h3>The Table of Contents</h3>
<p>Here&rsquo;s my deck&rsquo;s ToC:</p>
<ul>
<li>Overview</li>
<li>Architecture</li>
<li>SQL Server 2012 vs. <em>new! improved!</em> 2014</li>
<li>Building Columnstore Indexes</li>
<li>DDL</li>
<li>Resource Governor</li>
<li>Data Loading</li>
<li>Table Partitioning</li>
<li>Scenarios &amp; Successes</li>
<ul>
<li>Motricity</li>
<li>MSIT Sonar</li>
<li>DevCon Security</li>
<li>Windows Watson</li>
<li>MSIT Problem Management</li>
</ul>
<li>Room for Improvement</li>
<li>Learnings &amp; Best Practices</li>
<li>More Info</li>
</ul>
<h3>The Demos</h3>
<p>I&rsquo;ve included several demos, all of which are exceedingly simple &amp; include step-by-step walkthroughs.</p>
<ul>
<li>Conventional Indexes vs. Columnstore Perf</li>
<li>DDL</li>
<li>Resource Governor</li>
<li>Table Partitioning</li>
</ul>
<p>Let me know if you have any questions.&nbsp; In the meantime, enjoy!</p>Join Me on March 14 in Silicon Valley for a Full-Day of SQL Server Configuration Tuning Lessonshttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/kevin_kline/archive/2014/02/18/join-me-on-march-14-in-silicon-valley-for-a-full-day-of-sql-server-configuration-tuning-lessons.aspxTue, 18 Feb 2014 20:07:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:52880KKline<div><br></div><div><h1 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:21px;"><a href="http://www.sqlsaturday.com/276/eventhome.aspx"><img class="wp-image-5841 aligncenter" alt="SQLSat276" width="240" height="116" style="border:1px solid black;cursor:default;display:block;margin:1px auto;" src="http://kevinekline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/SQLSat276.jpg"></a></h1><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">&nbsp;</p><h1 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:21px;text-align:center;">Join me for a day of</h1><h1 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:21px;text-align:center;"><em>Real World Database Configuration and Tuning for Microsoft SQL Server</em></h1><h2 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:21px;"><br></h2><h2 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:21px;"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.eventbrite.com/o/sql-saturday-silicon-valley-2014-3237351936?s=20734804">SQL Saturday Silicon Valley 2014</a></h2><h2 style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;line-height:21px;">Friday, March 14, 2014 from 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM (PDT)</h2><div id="event_network" style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;"><h2>Mountain View, CA</h2><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;text-align:center;"><strong><a target="_blank" href="http://www.eventbrite.com/e/real-world-database-configuration-and-tuning-for-sql-server-2012-tickets-9909607904?aff=eorg">Click HERE to register Now! Seating is very limited!</a></strong></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;">&nbsp;</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;">This full-day training event combines a thorough overview of fundamental architectural concepts of the SQL Server relational engine followed by hands-on demos to reinforce each conceptual lesson. Since most technologists learn by doing, this training is designed to maximize the time attendees spend working with SQL Server. With ample demos, we’ll cover the spectrum of best practices as they relate to SQL Server configuration and performance tuning.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;">You will learn:</p><ul><li>The internals and architecture of SQL Server and how they interact during read and, separately, during write operations, including an overview of SQL Server caches, memory buffering and clean-up processes, and user activity handling.</li><li>An introduction to bare-metal tuning of server hardware and storage configurations for database applications, including DASD, RAID, SSD, and SAN architectures.</li><li>Important Windows and SQL Server configuration settings and trace flags, including special considerations for SQL Server running on VMs.</li><li>Methods for benchmarking the performance of alternative configurations and settings.</li><li>Designing databases for performance through indexing, statistics and cardinality, data types, and recovery mode.</li><li>Monitoring and identifying performance bottlenecks and resolving performance issues, including PerfMon, traces and extended events, Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) and Wait Statistics.</li><li>Advanced database structures including “Hekaton” in-memory tables and Columnstore indexes.</li></ul><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;">And, even better, come the following day to the free, full-day of training at the Silicon Valley SQL Saturday! I'll be there, hanging out and, y'know, doin' stuff. Or maybe not - doing stuff. But I'll definitely be at the SQL Saturday along with some of the best talent and top speakers in the SQL Server world!</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;">I hope to see you there! &nbsp;<span style="font-size:14.44444465637207px;">(Please note that this is a complete different presentation, top to bottom, from the pre-con seminar I presented at the 2012 SQL Saturday in Silicon Valley.)</span></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;"><span style="line-height:1.5em;">-Kevin</span></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;"><a href="http://twitter.com/kekline">-Follow me on Twitter!</a><br><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/1/113032055249023350257?rel=author">-Google Author</a></p></div></div>One Preparation that makes SSMS Crash Dumps Easy to Survivehttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/kevin_kline/archive/2014/02/10/one-preparation-that-makes-ssms-crash-dumps-easy-to-survive.aspxMon, 10 Feb 2014 15:50:00 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:52766KKline<p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;"><a href="http://aalamrangi.wordpress.com/2011/10/25/recover-queries-after-a-sql-server-management-studio-ssms-crash/"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5837" alt="ssms_query_recover_dialog" width="300" height="294" style="border:0px;cursor:default;display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="http://kevinekline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/ssms_query_recover_dialog-300x294.png"></a></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;text-align:center;"><em>Uh oh!</em></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">So you're plugging along in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) when it suddenly goes belly up. Now you're staring at various dialog boxes telling you that SSMS crashed. Usually the first dialog box you get will ask you if you'd like to close OR the program. If you choose to close the program, you'll be presented with the opportunity to recover your lost SQL scripts once you reopen SSMS, as shown above.&nbsp;&nbsp;(Image above courtesy of&nbsp;<a href="http://aalamrangi.wordpress.com/2011/10/25/recover-queries-after-a-sql-server-management-studio-ssms-crash/">Aalam Rangi</a>).</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">But let's say that closing the program represents a&nbsp;<em>big</em>&nbsp;issue for you due to lost time, productivity, etc. You want to go the&nbsp;<em>other&nbsp;</em>route - you want to DEBUG! So, what's the easiest way to get a crash dump or to debug SSMS from this state?</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;"><span style="line-height:1.5em;">In my personal experience, the natural choice and the&nbsp;<em>only&nbsp;</em>choice I'm ever presented&nbsp;is to debug in Visual Studio. But I'm not really a Visual Studio guy. And I find that those times I've attempted to follow the debug route have left me with very little useful information.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">But it turns out that, with a little earlier preparation, you can get a postmortem crash dump using a very nicely detailed set of steps detailed at at&nbsp;<a title="http://www.codeproject.com/KB/debug/automemorydump.aspx&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; CTRL + Click to follow link" style="line-height:1.5em;" href="http://www.codeproject.com/KB/debug/automemorydump.aspx">http://www.codeproject.com/KB/debug/automemorydump.aspx</a><span style="line-height:1.5em;">. &nbsp;In a nutshell, you'll use the Microsoft debugger&nbsp;<a title="Microsoft WinDbg" href="http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/ddk/debugging/installx86.mspx">WinDBG</a>&nbsp;and, along with a few setting changes, configure your workstation to automatically take a memory dump when SSMS crashes.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">Once you've got your workstation set up to automatically grab a memory dump upon a crash, you have to interpret the results. I'm not going to duplicate excellent guidance provided by Microsoft at the&nbsp;<a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/psssql/archive/2012/03/15/intro-to-debugging-a-memory-dump.aspx">CSS SQL Server Engineering Blog</a>. &nbsp;So be sure to give that post a read to flesh out your understanding of taking and reading memory dumps.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">Equipped with this information and a few steps of preparatory work, and you're now ready to conquer SQL Server memory dumps!</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">Have you every had a crash in SSMS? How did you troubleshoot and resolve the problem? Let me know what you think.</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">Thanks,</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">-Kevin</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;"><a href="http://twitter.com/kekline">-Follow me on Twitter!</a><br><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/1/113032055249023350257?rel=author">-Google Author</a></p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="margin-bottom:1.3em;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:14.44444465637207px;line-height:21px;"><b>&nbsp;</b></p>SQL Rally Pre-Con: Data Warehouse Modeling – Making the Right Choiceshttp://sqlblog.com/blogs/davide_mauri/archive/2013/10/09/sql-rally-pre-con-data-warehouse-modeling-making-the-right-choices.aspxWed, 09 Oct 2013 12:56:48 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:51265manowar<p>As you may have already learned from my <a href="http://sqlblog.com/blogs/davide_mauri/archive/2013/08/29/conferences-in-the-next-months.aspx">old post</a> or <a href="http://sqlblog.com/blogs/adam_machanic/archive/2013/10/04/query-performance-sessions-in-stockholm-and-amsterdam.aspx">Adam’s</a> or <a href="http://sqlblog.com/blogs/kalen_delaney/archive/2013/10/01/did-you-know-there-is-a-pass-conference-in-stockholm.aspx">Kalen’s</a> posts, there will be two SQL Rally in North Europe.</p> <p>In the Stockholm SQL Rally, with my friend <a href="http://blog.kejser.org/">Thomas Kejser</a>, I’ll be delivering a pre-con on Data Warehouse Modeling:</p> <blockquote> <p>Data warehouses play a central role in any BI solution. It's the back end upon which everything in years to come will be created. For this reason, it must be rock solid and yet flexible at the same time. To develop such a data warehouse, you must have a clear idea of its architecture, a thorough understanding of the concepts of Measures and Dimensions, and a proven engineered way to build it so that quality and stability can go hand-in-hand with cost reduction and scalability. In this workshop, Thomas Kejser and Davide Mauri will share all the information they learned since they started working with data warehouses, giving you the guidance and tips you need to start your BI project in the best way possible―avoiding errors, making implementation effective and efficient, paving the way for a winning Agile approach, and helping you define how your team should work so that your BI solution will stand the test of time.</p> <p>You'll learn:</p> <ul> <li>Data warehouse architecture and justification </li> <li>Agile methodology </li> <li>Dimensional modeling, including Kimball vs. Inmon, SCD1/SCD2/SCD3, Junk and Degenerate Dimensions, and Huge Dimensions </li> <li>Best practices, naming conventions, and lessons learned </li> <li>Loading the data warehouse, including loading Dimensions, loading Facts (Full Load, Incremental Load, Partitioned Load) </li> <li>Data warehouses and Big Data (Hadoop) </li> <li>Unit testing </li> <li>Tracking historical changes and managing large sizes</li> </ul> </blockquote> <p>With all the Self-Service BI hype, Data Warehouse is become more and more central every day, since if everyone will be able to analyze data using self-service tools, it’s better for him/her to rely on correct, uniform and coherent data. Already 50 people registered from the workshop and seats are limited so don’t miss this unique opportunity to attend to this workshop that is really a unique combination of years and years of experience!</p> <p><a title="http://www.sqlpass.org/sqlrally/2013/nordic/Agenda/PreconferenceSeminars.aspx" href="http://www.sqlpass.org/sqlrally/2013/nordic/Agenda/PreconferenceSeminars.aspx">http://www.sqlpass.org/sqlrally/2013/nordic/Agenda/PreconferenceSeminars.aspx</a></p> <p>See you there!</p>